Mamie Bryan of North Carolina, standing in front of one of her quilts, September, 1978. Photo by Geraldine Johnson. Part of the Quilts and Quiltmaking in America: 1978-1996 online presentation. Part of the cultural documentation found in North Carolina's Local Legacy projects.

North Carolina

The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress through Public Law 94-201 and charged to "preserve and present American folklife." The Center incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established at the Library of Congress in 1928, and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world.

Collections

The collections of the American Folklife Center contain rich material from North Carolina that documents the state's diverse folk traditions. Among its unique recordings are African American religious services; many hours of fiddle, banjo, dulcimer, and guitar music; recordings of folklore dating from the 1940s; and the Joseph S. Hall Great Smoky Mountains Project, which includes recordings of folksongs, narrative, instrumental music, and speech, from the 1940s through the 1960s. In 1978, the Center conducted the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project, which documented the folk traditions of the region that surrounds the parkway. The material created during this project, including thousands of photographs, many hours of interviews, and video documentation, has been incorporated into the collections of the Folklife Center.

• North Carolina Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture [draft available upon request]

Quilting documentation from the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Survey forms part of the online presentation Quilts and Quiltmaking in America: 1978-1996.

American Folklife Center collections presented online through the American Memory Project include Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip; folksingers and folksongs documented during a three-month trip through the Southern United States. The collection includes material from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

North Carolina participated in the Library's Bicentennial Local Legacies project, which includes documentation of local traditions and celebrations for the American Folklife Center's Archive of Folk Culture.

• View North Carolina's Local Legacies projects

Concert Webcast

August 17, 2005: Benton Flippen and the Smokey Valley Boys. [webcast and event flyer] [catalog record]

Field Research Projects

• 1978 Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project. [catalog record] [finding aid]

Publications

• Blue Ridge Harvest: A Region's Folklife in Photographs. [catalog record]
• "New Pots for Old: Burlon Craig's Strategy for Success," Folklife Annual 88-89. [catalog record]

Published Recordings

• Folk Songs of America: The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection 1922-32, Library of Congress AFS L67. [online presentation]
• Children of the Heavenly King, Library of Congress AFS L69/70. [audiocassette]
• Jack Tales, Library of Congress AFS L47/48. [audiocassette]